MK Vladimir Blayak spoke today (Sunday) with Ben Caspit and Aryeh Eldad on their program on 103FM and referred to the incident with the chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Simcha Rothman who was seen in New York grabbing the megaphone from a protester . Rothman claimed that "the protesters blocked our way, stepped on my wife's foot and cursed, including death wishes."
"She shoved it in my ear": Rothman reacts for the first time to the megaphone incident in the US
"We represent here the Jewish, democratic and liberal State of Israel. I support the State of Israel, I am an Israeli patriot just like the demonstrators here who are fighting against the legal coup and for Israeli democracy. I don't see any contradiction here. I think it is legitimate to oppose this government which is anti-Zionist and destroys the Israeli democracy," Beliac said at the beginning of the interview.
Regarding the incident with Rothman and the protesters, he noted: "I was not at the event. The delegation was at a Shabbat meal with the Jewish Agency's emissaries, and Rothman joined. I went out to the protesters, I talked to them. I saw his reaction this morning. These are not people who physically attack, nor people who wish Death. I believe he is lying and it wasn't. By the way, there is no proof of that."
The Knesset member from Yesh Atid also claimed: "There was no megaphone in the ear, unless Simcha Rotman has ears that are 1.5 meters long. It simply wasn't. There was no need to make things up. There was an unpleasant protest, but it's a legitimate protest. We elected officials, and to lose your temper like that and attack demonstrators who express a protest, perhaps unpleasant, unsympathetic, but legitimate and legal… I would not act in such a way. There was no physical attack. As he shut down our microphones and kicked us out of the Constitutional Committee for no reason, That's how he tried to silence the protesters as well. It's a legitimate protest, sometimes it's unpleasant, but we're in an unusual event, what can we do?"
In conclusion, he said: "After a series of meetings here with American Jews, I get the impression that the value gap between the current government and American Jewry is getting wider and wider, and this is a very big danger to the future of our relations with our most important friend in the world, and we need to talk about this. And what to do? Simcha Rothman is causing this gap to widen. I came to listen, I did not come to express a position and express positions here against the government. I am part of the agency's delegation and I came mainly to listen and learn, and my conclusions are very problematic. We need to think about how we bridge this gap because In my eyes, he is very dangerous and will also spill over into all kinds of other areas in our relationship."
Assisted in the preparation of the article: Amitai Doak, 103FM
